


The Laboratory

by the_authors_exploits



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Kitty!Harry, M/M, bunny!draco, scientist girls for the win!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 08:16:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3374309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_authors_exploits/pseuds/the_authors_exploits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione finds some new specimens, but she didn't know what she was signing up for.</p><p>This is an au</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Laboratory

**Author's Note:**

> So, first things first, I know I havent posted in a while and that's due to a lot of reasons which I dont feel comfortable sharing. And I am also aware this is awful writing...
> 
> Secondly, thanks to [cremebunny](http://cremebunny.tumblr.com/) for her wonderful [artwork](http://cremebunny.tumblr.com/post/110371396893) because it inspired me :)

“Ginny! Ginny, look at them!”

“I am, Hermione, I am!”

“This is a whole new species! Look at them; are they aliens? What am I saying, of course they aren’t aliens! What if they are a scientific experiment gone wrong?”

“No, no, well maybe an experiment but not an alien…”

“An experiment, definitely an experiment; do you think they were thrown out or escaped?”

“I don’t know, ‘mione.”

In the small glass container on the table before the two girls were two tiny bodies, not much larger than a man’s hand. One sported dark hair and dark ears and a small dark tail; the other was a foil of the first. Pale, blond hair, blond ears, a small blond puff of a tail. Hermione, a studious girl, was peering curiously into the side of the container, while her companion watched from above.

“Ahh, Ginny, this could be our breakthrough in the scientific world. What if they are just a new species? We could actually go somewhere with this; imagine our names going down in the books!”

“It is exciting, Hermione, but what if they are an illegal experiment? I mean, they are obviously someone’s. They’ve been cared for, they’re wearing clothes and their hair looks cared for—well! The blond does, the dark haired looks really messy…” Ginny rested a hand on her hip and gazed about the lab; no one was present besides her and her companion as it was lunch time.

That was how Hermione had found their two new specimens; she had been waiting for Ginny at a picnic table near the woods at the back of the facility when she’d heard rustling at the border of the forest and upon investigating found a small, pale, humanoid being. Immediately, she captured it for further investigation but as soon as she got it in her clutches, it started squealing and a second small being burst forth from the bushes. Hermione, being the ambitious scientist she was, took both back to the lab.

No one had ever seen these beings before, it wasn’t mentioned once in any texts or journals. Small human beings—with animal ears and tails. It was an exciting find!

Ginny left her partner peering at her find to finish her salad lunch; while it was incredibly exciting, Ginny was hungry and was going to eat.

In the container, the cat creature let his bunny companion hide behind him.

 _“Draco,”_ he whined quietly. _“That big lady is looking at us weird.”_

 _“Make her go away!”_ cried his companion. _“I lost my jacket to that man at the lake and Pansy hit me in the arm with her net, I don’t want any more big people near me.”_

Harry turned around quickly and reached for Draco’s wrist; he remembered Draco slipping free of his jumper when Doctor Zambini tried to grab him, and then Pansy Parkinson swatting a large net to try and catch him. It looked like it had hurt quiet a lot when it connected with Draco and sent him stumbling. _“Let me see; I knew you were injured! Why didn’t you say so sooner?”_

_“As if I would share anything of importance with you of all people, Potter!”_

Harry sighed, peering closely at the other’s arm. _“Can’t you put childish school rivalry behind you for the moment?”_

Draco’s ears flopped with a shake of his head. _“My father will hear of this.”_

Harry leaned back, but didn’t let Draco’s wrist go. _“If we ever get back to our families.”_ A tip of his head and he pushed his tiny glasses up his nose with his free hand when they slipped. _“Why did you, of all people, volunteer for this secret experiment again? I know Pansy is a friend of yours but that can’t be why. You wouldn’t put yourself in danger if not to gain in someway.”_

Draco tugged his appendage free; it was only a bruise on his arm, nothing to worry about but certainly something to complain whenever the moment arose. He would make sure to take advantage of that. _“There’s no reason for me to answer your questions, Potter.”_ With that, Draco huddled in a corner as far away from Harry as possible.

Despite Harry’s further attempts at conversation, Draco ignored him and they didn’t communicate again until the bushy haired lady returned with a different cage for them. This one wasn’t glass, but wire, with a small door they were shoved into and paper bedding on the ground; two bowls of food could be found in a corner and a water bottle hanging from the wall for them to drink from ( _“She can’t be serious, I won’t drink from that, Potter, that’s humiliating!”_ ); there was also some toys and a small bed. There was a ramp leading to a higher level, though that level was tiny and neither felt the need to explore it.

“They haven’t squeaked in a while; do you think it’s their way of communication, Ginny?”

“Yeah, I wonder if they can understand each other. They are chimeras with two separate animals, you know?”

Hermione nodded; on her lap was a clipboard with a stack of lined paper clipped to it and a pen in hand. On the desk by the cage were a few extra pens incase her first ran out of ink. There were five new books on her desk on the topics of cat care, rabbit care, and the process of cell convergence. Some of their coworkers had returned from their lunch break and were casting curious glances at Hermione’s new experiment.

The doors were flung open and a tall, lanky redhead came through. He meandered to Hermione’s desk and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

“Hi, ‘mione; what are you working on?”

“Oh, hi, Ron! Look what I found; they’re some sort of chimera. Aren’t the cute? Do you know what sort of possibilities this could uncover? Do you think they’re a failed experiment, or maybe a whole new species?”

Ron, Hermione’s boyfriend, stared wide eyed at the small pair. “What the hell? Aliens, they’re definitely aliens!”

Hermione started her memorized speech on how it was improbable that aliens had found it to their planet yet and Ron only half listened, too excited at the prospect of possible aliens in front of him. Eventually, Hermione kicked him out of the lab so he wouldn’t disrupt the scientists’ work anymore and he returned to his security patrol around Gryffindor Lab’s halls.

Throughout the rest of the day, other scientists approached Hermione and they discussed the possibilities quietly, observing the creatures carefully. Ginny, being Hermione’s lab partner, filled out the appropriate paper work to be turned in so they could begin legal observations and possible analysis of DNA as soon as possible.

That night, the creatures were left in the lab when the building closed and everyone went home.

_“Malfoy?”_

_“What, Potter?”_

_“I don’t like this; it’s cold.”_

_“It’s dark.”_

_“Not really, I can see pretty good.”_

A quiet pause.

_“It’s the cat part of you; cats see really well in the dark. Snitch has exceptional night vision.”_

_“Snitch?”_

Draco glared, realizing his mistake. He let personal information slip. _“None of your business!”_ He squawked.

Harry couldn’t help but grin. _“You have a cat, Draco? Since when?”_

Draco picked at his cuticles and tried to blow one of his long ears out of his face; it didn’t work. _“I found her, sophomore year. Satisfied?”_

Harry shrugged and picked through the rabbit food; carrots and lettuce and tomatoes. No way he was going to eat processed cat food! _“That’s cute.”_

_“Shut up. I’m tired; I’m going to bed.”_

Harry watched his companion shuffle through the ground to reach the little plush bed in the corner. _“Okay.”_ He stood to follow when Draco turned around quickly, his tail twitching and ears flying.

_“Stay there! I’m not sharing a bed with you, stinky Potter!”_

_“I don’t stink…”_ While he tried to sound strong and confident, his ears flattened against his head in disappointment. _“Come on, Draco, it’s just a bed. There’s plenty of space for both of us.”_

Draco shook his head vehemently. _“Not a chance! And it’s Malfoy to you, what gives you the right to call me by my first name?”_ Obviously a rhetorical question as Draco clambered into bed and hunkered down for the night with his back to Harry.

The dark haired boy sighed. _“Goodnight…Malfoy…”_

Harry gathered some of the soft bedding from the bottom floor and carried it up the slippery ramp to form a sort of nest on the small second floor. There he slowly drifted to sleep to the buzzing silence of a cold lab room; only to awake the next morning, hoping it had all been a bad dream, to find Draco sneezing and attempting to burrow beneath the bedding on the ground floor.

_“Dra—Malfoy? What’s the matter?”_

Draco’s small, pinched face poked out from beneath the yellow colored paper. _“Nothing is the matter, nothing at all, leave me alone!”_

Harry frowned and slowly made his way down the ramp; outside the cage, some early people in lab coats with red collars and a lion pendant attached to their breast pockets were diligent over equipment. _“Your nose is pink.”_

His cheeks joined his nose in a blush and he hurriedly burrowed beneath his pile of bedding again; he was not going to admit to being cold all night long because he didn’t have his jacket. _“I’m fine, go away! Stupid Potter and his stupid face and his stupid…stupid!”_

_“How eloquent, Draco.”_

_“Malf—aCHOO!”_

Harry snickered and went to raid the rabbit food again; once he had munched on some lettuce, he brought some slices of carrots to where Draco was buried. _“Malfoy, eat something.”_

_“I shall not eat any of that rubbish! Come back when we have some sausage and eggs and biscuits!”_

Harry prodded the other boy with the tip of the orange vegetable. _“We have carrots.”_

Draco burst from the bedding in a flurry, arms flailing and nose even pinker than before. _“I want sausage! You are no help at all, Potter, did I ask if we have carrots? No, I know we have carrots, but I don’t want to eat carrots, especially not carrots that have been out for a day! I want sausage!”_ And on he went; Harry listened patiently, munching on the rejected carrots as he settled into the soft floor. This seemed like it was going to be a long rant.

Sure enough, when Hermione arrived that morning with the signed consent forms Draco was still squeaking up a storm, stomping around the cage and kicking at the bedding.

“Ohmy…”

“He’s been like that all morning, Hermione.” Finnigan spoke from his own station; the collar and cuffs of his lab coat were both burnt and Hermione wondered if any of the burns were new. She cautiously peered at the chemicals on his desk and decided they seemed to be safe of explosions for the day; then again, he was talented at making anything and everything explode.

“I’ll see what I can do; sorry about that.”

“You got the papers signed?”

“Yes! I can start this project right away!”

“That was fast; no investigation? What if they belong to one of the other labs? Like Ravenclaw or something?”

Hermione waved the papers in her hand. “I don’t care; they’re here now and these papers say I can work with them. The investigation can come later; besides, if they do belong to one of the other labs it is illegal to experiment on humans.”

Finnigan shrugged and returned to his station; it sounded pretty plausible, especially coming from Hermione. “Okay, whatever you say.”

Hermione nodded and opened the door on the cage. The tiny bunny went from chattering to his cat companion to pointing at her and squalling. “I guess we’ll start with you; come here.” She reached into the cage…only to draw her hand back quick! “Ouch! He bit me!”

Harry jumped up and hurried to Malfoy’s side; Draco was coughing and spitting onto the floor. _“Draco! Why would you do that! We need her to like us!”_

_“Ughh, gack! She tastes like mud! Mudblood, mudblood, I have mudblood in my mouth!”_

_“Stop it, Draco, you can’t be rude!”_

Draco only glared at him, but it soon melted away into a ridiculously cute pout. _“I still want my sausage…”_

Harry sighed, his shoulders and ears slumping. This was going to be a long day.

Weeks went by and Draco, sadly, never got his sausage; though Ginny was attentive enough to switch out the cat food with tuna or the occasional pieces of chicken. He was thankful for that, and only ever used the water bottle when everyone was gone and Harry was fast asleep. During the day, either one or the other was removed and studied as if they were mice: mazes and puzzles and sometimes the redhead or Mudblood would pluck hair from their head or scrape a large Q-tip against the sides of their mouth and study it. Draco was growing increasingly irritated with this and he wanted to scream or tear his ears out!

One day, neither scientists showed up and the tiny creatures were left alone for the entire day. Draco peered around the near empty room.

_“Where are they? Ignoring me like I’m easily tossed aside!”_

Harry chewed quietly on a piece of tuna and toddled over to take a sip from the water bottle. _“You complain when they’re here, you complain when they’re gone.”_

_“Naturally.”_

Harry licked his fingers from any crumbs and, after getting a sip of water, kicked at a small toy ball in their cage. _“Play kickball with me, Malfoy.”_

Malfoy’s nose scrunched up. _“No; that is undignified.”_

_“Draco, I hate to break it to you but you are a miniature humanoid rabbit; come play kickball and stop glaring at the other scientists.”_

At the central building on the several acre land owned by Hogwarts Incorporated, Hermione and Ginny found their seats in the auditorium and settled in for the seminar.

“Doctor Parkinson,” Ginny read from the pamphlet in her hands. “Is an esteemed Slytherin doctor attempting to find more natural genetic weapons for future wars in hopes of providing the Auror Army with stronger, more effective and efficient weapons.”

“That’s all Slytherins care about: weapons and war and power.”

Ginny decided to not comment and continued reading. “This should be interesting.”

These seminars were only mandatory for the lab the speaking scientists was hailing from, but other laboratories would send some of their top employees to scout the other labs’ advancements or findings. Still, some other people would interrupt their work day and come of their own accord, if the topic interested them or just out of curiosity or boredom.

“Ahem,” the voice came over the loud speakers. “If I may have your attention, please; yes, take your seats, that would be good. Very good, yes.”

Hermione rolled her eyes; there was Pansy Parkinson at the podium, her dark dress-lab coat with the rich velvet green collar cinched tight around her waist and her shiny, manicured nails clacking against the wood as she tapped in annoyance. She flipped a piece of dark hair over her shoulder and the lights dimmed to allow her presentation to show on the large board behind her.

“Obviously, war is not avoidable. Peace cannot last and we always need to be vigilante and prepared for the battle…”

She droned on about politics for the first ten minutes, and the following twelve were dedicated to the evolution of weapons from the Civil War to the World Wars. Hermione only half listened, not interested in weapons though the science of the atomic bomb and other forms of weapons were fascinating for their scientific breakthrough—but she already knew of them. No, she was more interested in what form of genetic findings Parkinson had.

“I have found that there is a certain DNA coding in a few select animals that have one of two effects: they can either be used for healing illness when manipulated a certain way, or they can be used to induce illness.” The slide changed from showing the DNA strand to a list of symptoms. “Sneezing, coughing, and irritability are the starters; then the shrinkage of muscles should follow, resulting in neural damage and the possibility of brain injury. Of course, throughout this time a horrid fever will take hold, causing hallucinations and possibly fatal heart palpitations. This is, at the moment, speculatory and untested on humans, but from extensive research of the DNA itself and some animal testing it shows great promise in being weaponized.”

“If it has the potential to heal, why would you want to weaponize it?” Hermione interrupted loudly; questions were usually asked after the speaker was finished and indicated the “mic was open”. Hermione had, in a way, disrespected that unspoken rule.

Pansy seemed to take it in stride, though she glared through the darkened room towards Hermione’s voice. “We should weaponize it to protect us; besides, heralding from Slytherin I am to focus my abilities at weapons, not something soft like the Hufflepuffs and their healing.”

“But perhaps this would be better suited for hospitals than the battle field, Doctor Parkinson. Slytherin is already making leaps and bounds with their weapons program; couldn’t the medical part of Hufflepuff benefit from this?”

“I wonder, Miss Granger—”

“Doctor, if you please.”

“—Why you are speaking up for Hufflepuff when you are Gryffindor.”

A few rows behind Granger, some people from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw began whispering: “there goes that rivalry thing again”, “can’t they just get alone”, “never understand those two groups”.

Hermione steadily ignored the whispers. “Why not speak up for the expansion of other projects? I don’t see why certain ones need special care and attention when they are already blossoming.”

Pansy tsked and, once more, tossed some hair over her shoulder. “I’m not going to waste my time arguing with you, Granger. This is my project after all, so it is mine to decide what to do with. Now!” She clapped her hands together. “Any intelligent questions?”

“Uh, yeah, I have one.” Dean Thomas lifted his hand. “Uh, you didn’t say what animals this DNA was found in.”

“Well, if you’re that curious: it was found in a cat and rabbit.”

After the seminar that day, the laboratory returned to normal. A few days, Harry would awake to find Draco sneezing again but he figured it was because he was cold in the room at night; it did drop fairly low in temperature for two small creatures. Of course, he still refused Harry to share the bed with him.

But one day, Harry awoke to a more ill Draco Malfoy. He hadn’t even left the small bed yet so Harry climbed in and poked his back.

_“Hey, are you okay?”_

_“Go ‘way, Potter…”_

He sounded hoarse and tired, so Harry figured this was a safe time to lay down and enjoy the plush bed; not like Draco would physically force him away. So that’s what he did. Harry laid right down and closed his eyes. He was just starting to doze off when he felt his companion shift, roll over, and suddenly he had a weight pressed to his side. His eyes snapped open; sure enough, Draco was curled up against his side, face a bit flushed with fever and his small tail twitching every so often; his hands were tiny balls squeezed between their bodies. Gently, so as to not disturb his now sleeping partner, Harry turned on his side and slipped an arm around the shiver body; Draco whined quietly and nuzzled closer for extra warmth. Harry, once more, shut his eyes, content that his companion was cared for.

When Harry awoke next, Draco was hiding behind his ears and his only words all day were _“we never speak of this again”_ and that was that; Harry was allowed into the pet bed after that and always, sometime during the night, Draco would wind up curled against his side. In the morning, nothing was mentioned and they went about their day (mazes, tests, etcetera).

Harry found his feelings changing during these couple days after his first excursion into the bed. He found he didn’t very much like the ladies holding and carrying around Draco; a couple times he slashed at them, hissing and batting at their hands pathetically with his own tiny ones. He didn’t like people to touch his companion, especially when Draco wasn’t feeling himself. Harry also noticed he wanted to make sure Draco was happy, not that that was new, but this desire seemed to grow. At night, he would ask the blond multiple times if he was comfortable, warm enough; during the day, when they were together in the cage, Harry would go scurrying from the food bowl to wherever Draco might be, handing him little nibbles of food.

Draco noticed the changes too; normally, these actions towards him would be something he would take advantage of. A minion to do his bidding was always good, except now he seemed to want to impress Harry by refusing the care. He was strong too; Harry was strong, right? So was Draco! He just had to prove it. So he refused; as much as possible, that is.

_“You’ve barely ate anything all day; have some chicken, please. Or at least drink some water. You need to keep your energy up, Draco.”_

The bunny boy tried to ignore that he enjoyed hearing his first name from that mouth. _“I’m fine! If I need anything, I’ll get it. I’m not an invalid, I can take care of myself!”_

His friend, if that is what he could be called, frowned. _“Just take the food!”_

_“No!”_

_“Why not? It’s right here, just take it and eat it.”_

The glare on the pale face was softened by the floppy ears and the flushed cheeks. Draco thought he had it, that he could refuse forever, but Harry’s eyes were wide and worried and caring and Draco huffed air out. He snatched the piece of canned chicken. _“Fine!”_

The triumphant smile on Harry’s face made Draco’s heart flutter and he turned away to hide a blush that was certainly not from his fever. So the days and weeks went; two months since coming to Gryffindor Labs, they began to seek out each other for comfort and conversation. It was a strange change, but not unwelcomed on either side.

Meanwhile, in Slytherin Labs, Pansy Parkinson was stamping around and throwing a tantrum.

“I cannot believe you let them out of their cage; do you realize how far back this puts us, Blaise? Not to mention that who knows where they are; what if one of the other labs got a hold of them? What about that, Zambini?”

Her partner shrugged. “Then so be it; you know human testing is illegal. We proved that the DNA can affect humans; Draco had the virus in him when I let him go.”

“Yes! And now who knows how far it has spread!”

Blaise scratched at his head. “Ehh, we don’t know if it spreads yet so… We see who gets sick or not, then we have fully tested if it’s spread or not and, after your symposium a few days ago, whoever has hold of those two will be blamed for one: stealing our research, and two: for human testing. Easy.”

Pansy shrugged halfheartedly. “We get our full intel while someone else takes the blame.”

“Bingo.”

“But,” Pansy glared. “We can’t be sure if one of the labs got a hold of them or not; they could’ve ran off the land.”

Blaise shook his head. “Hogwarts Incorporated is too large; one of the other labs has them, for sure.”

Pansy sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Honestly, this is ridiculous… All for the sake of science.”

“Speak for yourself; I’m doing this for the notoriety. Do you realize how famous we’ll be when this becomes a weapon?”

Pansy flapped a hand in dismissal.

Harry had wanted Draco to stay in bed, since he had been feeling sick, but the rabbit boy refused. At least Harry was able to convince him to sit on a nice pile of bedding instead of moving around too much. Still, Harry would have rathered the boy rest more to alleviate his illness; the scientists only seemed slightly concerned, but Harry was a ball of worry.

 _“I just want to go home.”_ He was pouting, and twiddling his thumbs while he slumped in Harry’s nest.

Harry was staring out the cage at the two ladies who were studying numbers and graphs on the computer screen before them. _“I know. We need to find a way to communicate with them.”_

_“I miss Mother.”_

_“Mmhmm.”_

_“Why did you volunteer for the experiment, Harry?”_

Harry regarded Draco from the corner of his eye. _“You’re kidding, right? Aunt Petunia wanted the small amount of money I’d be paid—you know, like compensation pay—so she signed me up.”_

Draco made a face. _“Against your will?”_

Harry nodded and turned back to the lady scientists. _“What about you?”_

Malfoy threw pieces of the nest over the edge of the second floor and watched them flutter down to the ground. _“I don’t have to answer your questions.”_

_“It can’t be for the money, you’re rich as thieves! And you don’t like science, and I highly doubt it would be a favor to Pansy; right?”_

The blond shrugged, but said nothing.

Harry came over to kneel next to his companion; he resolutely ignored the way Draco tried to glare him away. _“I answered your question.”_

Malfoy sighed; he was tired, and he didn’t really want to fight against Potter’s care anymore. _“My mother is ill; it’s a problem with her immune and neural system. Pansy said if this experiment worked it might…save her.”_

 _“I…I’m so sorry.”_ It was no secret Draco was close to his mother, and even Harry who had had no tender motherly love in his entire life could feel the pain a mother’s death would bring. _“I wish it would have worked, Draco.”_

 _“It still can! It will!”_ Draco’s eyes were watery, his nose and cheeks red—nose from sneezing and cheeks from his ever present fever—and his ears seemed to droop ever more. His fists were clenched tight against the ground, and while he tried to glare it was pathetically somber.

 _“Draco…I…”_ The words stuck in his throat; what could he say to get that pathetically sad look from Draco’s face, other than…? _“Draco, I love you.”_

There was a pause where Harry had a moment to think of what he just said. He could very easily take it back, brush them away, but he didn’t want to. Sure, it was a strange time to admit to that, but he wanted to. He loved Draco. Draco huffed a laugh, turned away, and brushed his tears away.

 _“Stupid Potter. You don’t love me.”_ He stood to leave and skirted around Harry to reach the ramp.

Harry stood quickly. _“Yes I do! I know I do! I know I do because…because…because I think I’ve loved you since freshmen year, when we met at Staples for school supplies and you tried to introduce yourself and I rebuffed you because my friends said you were mean! I loved you then, I know because my heart was hammering then like it has been now since we arrived at Slytherin Labs! I love you, Draco Malfoy!”_

Draco coughed. _“You do not love me, Harry. You cannot love me. Malfoys are not loved; they are lusted after, for their power or beauty. They are not loved. Love is not something we experience; love is not something my parents experience. Convenience, a marriage of convenience. You cannot love me.”_

Harry took a breath; he knew things were different for people like Malfoys, those who held certain political and economic power, those who were perfect. _“I love you. You can think I am lying or that it is unfair or wrong or whatever, but I love you. I think…I think I will always love you.”_

The blond said nothing, but his shoulders were shaking, his ears drooping to hide his face. _“You can’t…you can’t…”_ A noise like a sob came out and he clapped a hand over his mouth.

Harry hurried forward and reached to grab Draco, hug him, hold him, offer some sort of comfort, only for the blond to whirl and slap his hand away; tears were streaming down his cheeks but he still found it in him to glare.

 _“Don’t touch me! Leave me alone, Potter. You’re stupid and…and you stink and I hate you, I hate everything about you, every single solitary thing! I hate your hair, and your smile, and your goofy glasses and your eyes, god, your stupid eyes! I hate you, I hate your kindness and the way you walk and how you hesitated when I introduced myself all those years ago. I hate it because for a moment, just a moment, I thought someone was going to like me for me, not for my family name or my money. I thought…I thought I had a chance to be loved. But I don’t and I never will. So don’t lie, don’t try now…Ack, ack!”_ He broke off coughing, half bent over.

_“Draco!”_

He turned and fled down the ramp. _“Stay away! And don’t even think about sleeping in the bed tonight; or any other night.”_ He turned back. _“We are not friends, Potter. We never were and we never will be.”_

And he was gone, burrowing into a corner of the pet bed, leaving Harry dejected and completely alone.

“Hermione,” Ginny spoke the next day. “The rabbit is sick.”

“What?” Hermione peeked in; sure enough, the rabbit boy was pathetically sniffling in his bad and looking justly woozy. “I knew he wasn’t feeling well, but we’ve been giving him medicine. Strange…”

She reached in and held the cat at bay while she gently scooped the other out. Ginny peeked over her shoulder. “A fever, right?”

“Looks like it…” Hermione carefully cradled the creature to her; he was surprisingly complacent.

 _“Put him down!”_ Harry squeaked in anger. Since his confession and the subsequent argument, Draco had gotten much worse. Harry didn’t want anyone touching him, anyone at all, he needed to protect Draco.

“Have we finished the reversal serum yet?”

Ginny tapped at her computer. “It should be done later on today, midafternoon. Why? Do you really think it will work? I mean, they are missing a majority of their human DNA; we couldn’t even find a partial match for them in a citizen database.”

Hermione nodded. “Yeah, but I think this should work; if they are indeed an experiment, which it looks like they were, then we need to find a way to reverse it and it looks like this serum will do just that. It should remove the excess animal genes and allow their DNA to…uh, heal itself so to say.”

“I know that!” A roll of her eyes. “But I mean…it is a bit dangerous.”

“Yes, but we have two specimens so.”

Another roll of eyes. “I don’t doubt your ingenuity, Hermione.”

Sure enough, by midafternoon they had the healing serum and were ready to test it out.

_“Get that needle away from him! Hey! Hey!”_

“The cat is freaking out, Ginny, maybe we should sedate him.”

Ginny tipped her head to the side. “Well, I think he’s ok. He’s just a little thing; let’s take care of the rabbit first.”

Hermione held the small creature steady and Ginny, very gently, administered the liquid. The green goo flowed through Draco’s small veins and he felt everything go hazy; it seemed like he was being ripped in two, like one part of him was him, human him, and the other was very much an animal. It was strange, to feel both snarky and skittish at the same time, to feel them in equal amounts. But slowly the skittish, animalistic “fight or flight” disappeared to make room for Draco Malfoy and all his attitude.

The transformation was simple to the scientists; there were no gross sounds, like in movies, just a soft whisper through the air as the creature’s ears and tail tucked into the skin and his limbs elongated at the same time, as his body and mass and being grew back into a human form. Unfortunately for decency, his clothing ripped and he was left naked on the examination table. Once the simple transformation was complete, Hermione clapped a hand to her mouth and took a step back.

“Malfoy!”

Ginny handed the now alert, human boy a white shirt and pair of sweats closely resembling hospital pajamas. “Mister Malfoy,” everyone knew of the Malfoys. “Do you know where you are?”

“Of course I bloody well know where I am!” He snatched the clothing and hurriedly, but systematically, dressed. “Gryffindor Labs with the two stupidest, slowest scientists this side of Hogwarts! Really? Are you so incompetent that you cannot finish a simple serum in a shorter time frame—ack! Ack!” Before he could get his shirt on, he doubled over coughing.

“Mister Malfoy,” Hermione stepped forward to steady him but he shrugged her off.

“Just get Potter back to normal too; he can explain the situation to you. As for me, I have some business to attend to.” And with that he slipped pass the stunned scientists and out the door.

Ginny administered the serum to the cat boy, going through the process of the transformation and a general physical, while Hermione contacted Ron to try and track Malfoy down. Sure enough, Ron was able to locate him at Slytherin Labs and Hermione hurried over to collect him.

“And another thing, Parkinson!” Draco snatched some important looking papers from her desk and ripped them in two. “You knew, didn’t you? You let me and Potter go and didn’t say a solitary thing!”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

While she may have looked calm sitting in her computer chair, arms crossed, Draco had known her long enough to see the fear in her eyes; she knew what she had done.

“Mister Malfoy, please. We need to do an examination of you to ensure you are healthy.”

“I am not bloody healthy, you—you mudblood! I was a rabbit for weeks!” He coughed and Pansy surreptitiously toed her chair away from him. “And this—imp of a woman is to blame! Illegal experiments and DNA fusing!”

“He is ill,” Parkinson spoke quickly as Draco began coughing again. “We went to high school together, but I haven’t seen him since graduation.”

“That’s a lie!” A wide eyed Blaise spoke up; he knew when a ship was doomed to sink, and he knew it was time to get out while he still could. “She sees him biweekly for tea and cake at a café downtown! And she—she coerced me into helping with this, I have no part in it what so ever! It was all her idea!”

“Shut up, shut up, you bugeyed freak! You had as much a hand in this as I did.”

No one noticed Ginny or Harry entering, with an entourage of Hogwarts security. For the moment, everyone listened to get the full story.

Pansy, noticing the gig was up, slumped in her chair. “I found the DNA during a routine experiment on rats, to see if adding other DNA would make them smarter or give them other abilities—if it did, perhaps adding animal DNA to soldiers would create super-soldiers. It seemed plausible. The rats got sick, however, and one by one died; some survived, however, providing that they didn’t reject the DNA fusion. I figured if it worked on animals why not people? Of course, to confirm I needed experimental subjects. I contacted Draco, and remembered his fascination with a forgettable boy during high school. Two perfect subjects for my two DNA experiments.” She scratched at her head and the security personnel stepped forward to arrest her. “It worked… Kind of. Draco is sick.”

Draco found no remorse in having showed Pansy’s true colors; after all, she had attacked him first, using his mother as her weapon. He found no problem in retaliating and she nor her family name would ever be considered friends of Malfoy.

Ginny spoke. “Mister Potter isn’t, however. And I think I may know why; I noticed this when we were doing some experiments in our lab, ‘mione.” While the security guards took both Pansy and Blaise away, the girls escorted their now ex-specimens back to Gryffindor Labs. “See, the cat DNA has a bit of a healing factor to it, while the rabbit DNA holds the illness. That is, the cat heals and the rabbit does not.”

Draco coughed and Harry shot him a concerned look. “So there is still a chance there could be a healing remedy? Pansy said that was why she was doing the experiment…”

“Yes, it’s still highly probable! But first, we’ll need to get some in you to save you from this illness. Parkinson made it sound terrible at the symposium.”

After everything settled, Hermione and Ginny won an award for aiding in the finding of a healing remedy that was now being used for many a sick person in hospitals worldwide; while Parkinson had found it, she could not receive an award for it on the account that she was now tarnished from human experimentation and had been attempting to weaponize it instead. Therefore, the two Gryffindors received the award in her stead and it now sat in a nice, clean display case in their corner of the labs. The rabbit DNA was kept under tight lock and key to never be opened again unless direly needed during a time of crisis.

Once healed, Draco enrolled his mother on the waiting list for the medicine, bribing her position to number one. She was now healthy and happy after receiving her dose, tending to her gardens or bossing the servants around like she had never been ill. Draco and Harry went separate ways after the labs, though Harry knew he still loved Draco very much.

Harry went back home and his aunt, upon having the compensation money retracted by Hogwarts Incorporated, sent him to work at a coffee shop to bring in extra revenue.

It was a cold Saturday morning when the coffee shop door jingle-jangled open. Harry was bent over the counter engrossed in a book as the morning had been rather slow and didn’t notice the customer enter until he spoke.

“My mother says I’ve been sulking and should come out with it already so…” There stood Draco Malfoy, dressed in a warm coat with a dark green scarf around his neck and matching gloves warming his hands. He took a deep breath and spoke four words, cheeks reddening some. “Harry, I love you.”

In the back kitchen, Harry could hear someone ohing and another person shushing them. “Malfoy?”

“I think I’ve always loved you…you know, since the Staples incident, when I thought you might be my friend for me and not something else, I was so excited and then you rebuffed me and I got so angry and was so jealous; what did everyone else have that I didn’t? And the time at the labs, with you always looking after me and the…the nights where it would be super cold and…well, I think I love you.”

Harry couldn’t say anything and Draco grew impatient; he stared resolutely at the book lying open on the counter and kept his hands fisted at his side in a show of anxiety.

“Harry?”

Harry gripped the scarf tight and tugged; a kiss, a little messy what with the counter between them, but a kiss all the same.

A kiss that said _I love you too, you idiotic rabbit._


End file.
